With his leadership proposals reportedly abandoned, Starmer promises ‘new leadership’
In a new speech, Keir Starmer has made clear that Labour is under “new management”. At the same time, however, it’s reportedly the case that leadership pledges he made earlier this year have already been abandoned:
What about his fifth pledge, on common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water? Lisa Nandy says public ownership is "one way" and "another way" is "giving people more control" #PoliticsLive
— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) September 22, 2020
Red Wall
Starmer’s choice of warm-up act left little doubt that his keynote speech was an attempt to make a clean break from the Jeremy Corbyn era of the Labour Party. The introduction was given by Ruth Smeeth, a Jewish ex-MP who clashed with Corbyn over alleged anti-Semitism.
Smeeth lost her seat in Stoke as the so-called “Red Wall” crumbled last year and heartland voters deserted Labour. Data has shown Brexit to be the most decisive issue in why this happened. Starmer notably led the way for Labour to abandon its position of respecting the 2016 referendum and support a new public vote on Brexit.
Labour deserved to lose in 2019. An honest assessment of why includes those responsible for our Brexit policy. Hasn’t happened. But perhaps all this manic flag-waving is trying to overcompensate for his stint as Lord Mayor of Remainia 🤷🏻♂️ https://t.co/vaPcXpXvHf
— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) September 22, 2020
“Keir has already demonstrated that our party is under new management but let’s be clear – the country needs new leadership”, Smeeth said.
Starmer, who served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, said the party has to “get serious about winning” – the implication being Labour has not been focused on electoral success in the past. This is contrary to members of the Labour right reportedly working against Corbyn to scupper any chance of an electoral victory in 2017.
“When you lose an election in a democracy, you deserve to,” Starmer said – not mentioning the impact of Labour’s move away from respecting the 2016 referendum.
Now, after four election defeats in a row, Labour is finally becoming a “competent, credible opposition” and “deadly serious about victory”, he said.
Trust
In a direct attack on Corbyn’s leadership, Starmer said:
Never again will Labour go into an election not being trusted on national security, with your job, with your community and with your money.
That’s what being under new leadership means.
This talk of trust comes as several of his recent leadership pledges have allegedly been quietly discarded:
Labour have looked at the polls, the state of the country & the state of politics & come to the conclusion that what voters really, really like is a lying worm who says one thing to get elected & then the minute he gets in ditches all his promises & lurches further to the right. https://t.co/VTkwInBovE
— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) September 22, 2020
There was no mention of Corbyn by name but tellingly Starmer did praise three previous Labour leaders – Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair – who all won elections. He didn’t mention that Labour actually began losing support among the working classes under Blair.
Starmer points to 45, 64 & 97 saying Labour win by looking to future. Imitating Wilson by trying to achieve a balancing act between left and right through appeals to future & technology.
Not a bad idea but this is 2020, not 1964, & you need *political* solutions to big problems.
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) September 22, 2020
Starmer finished his speech, delivered in Doncaster, with a plea to voters who have turned away from Labour to “take another look” at the party, promising that he shared their values and “we love this country as you do”.
He said:
To those people in Doncaster and Deeside, in Glasgow and Grimsby, in Stoke and in Stevenage, to those who have turned away from Labour, I say this: we hear you.
Instrumental
Starmer was instrumental in steering Labour’s policy on Brexit, which meant going into the general election promising a second referendum – a move which put the party at odds with some of its previously loyal voters in Leave-supporting areas.
“The debate between Leave and Remain is over,” Starmer said. “We’re not going to be a party that keeps banging on about Europe”.
But he said Boris Johnson has “repeatedly promised that he will get a deal” with the European Union and if he does not succeed “he will be failing Britain”.
Criticism
Starmer has come in for some criticism for his speech:
All the feeble ‘tough talk’ on spending. All the ‘rule Brittania’ kitsch. All this minoritarian, uninspiring, Westminster-centric drivel. All so drearily predictable. I hope we’ll see an end to those humiliating “the left must support Starmer” pieces. It really mustn’t. https://t.co/ClrrQeMNE4
— Richard Seymour (@leninology) September 22, 2020
How long do you give it before Keir Starmer tries to get an endorsement from Gordon Brown’s bigoted woman
— The Poisonous Euros Atmosphere Fan (@DawnHFoster) September 22, 2020
People have also criticised Labour for adopting Tory rhetoric in a manner which has backfired before – notably under Ed Miliband:
It's depressing that the opposition doesn't realise that by repeating your opponent's frame (nationalism, family values etc), you don't steal their votes, you just strengthen their narrative.
If voters go into the polling booth thinking 'Britain first' and they'll vote Tory.
— Grace Blakeley (@graceblakeley) September 22, 2020
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I took another look at Labour. Then threw the pamphlet on the fire.
I’d have wiped my arse with it, but it was slick and shiny, and very flimsy.
You have an open fire?
Stammer the spammer backstabbing the lot of em are the little Tories
Re above pic – as soon as I saw it, I thought: “lipstick on pigs”. Was that wrong?
“To those people in Doncaster and Deeside, in Glasgow and Grimsby, in Stoke and in Stevenage, to those who have turned away from Labour, I say this: we hear you.”
All the charisma and enthusiasm of John Major. Remarkable.
So next election there won’t be the wall-to-wall negative coverage from all the corporate media, there won’t be massive vote-rigging of lederly patients in care homes (because so many have died), there won’t be a borderline electoral crime of an internationally-funded Brexshit Party that only sits in Labour marginals.
So while we are “blaming” the 50%+ of the country that wanted a second Ref like any PROPER democracy would give before such an enormous move, perhaps “we” should also be looking at what it means to live in a Democracy – such as political rights for minorites.
Labour lost the North because of a concerted campaign by far-right media oligarchs, and would have lost London and the cities if it had backed leave. Blaming Corbyn for either of these two “choices” is batshit crazy. Blaming Brits who wished to exercise their DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS to object to a policy is batshit crazy. Blame the cyncial Establishment, corporate media, and an education system designed to create Murdoch consumers with a reading age of 7 rather than informed citizens.
There ARE reasons to be concerned about the direction of the EU, but I didn’t hear a single one of them from the mouths of the Brexshit supporters on QT over 3 years.
Brexshit was supposed to be a trap – a lose-lose-lose trap, of course, and that is what happened. Blaming Corbyn, or Brits wishing to exercise their democratic rights to affect policy, is frankly stupid. Use that space, both in publishing and mentally, to focus upon the control that oligarchs have over our media and public life.
I watch free roaming pigs in the New Forest. They are clean, fun-loving & friendly. I can say nothing detrimental about pigs. Rather I thought lipstick on turds was more appropriate. But by the bowels of Satan that woman’s ugly !!
The bequiffed muppet who has replaced St.Jeremy & turned Labour blue will ignore the 400,00 who joined to support JC & will thereby loose the next election. Good riddance but in light of Kerry-anne’s brilliant analysis yesterday of the Eton Spiv & his consigliere Court Jesters, there is no-one else to vote for & we are sunk. UKania is done for & will slide to Hell’s sewer to the detriment of us all.
After being on, and loving every minute of, furlough for five months I’ll be voting for whoever wants to pay me to stay at home.
Calvanistic puritanical pious doom merchant.
‘Ruth Smeeth,’ mmm!
Anyone who is in any doubt over Smeeth’s integrity should take the time to watch ‘The Lobby,’ where she happily surrounds herself with the very worst of (not really) Labour private lobbyists, working the Israeli/Zionist cause.
It would seem that THE current political narrative is designed specifically for people who define themselves as ‘non-political’ and who vote, but not politically! A ‘political’ vote in the current climate would be to spoil one’s ballot paper to signify that ‘None Of The Above represent my views’. The other alternative is to focus locally and organise locally around local issues.
Why doesn’t anyone get it? Even after such a disastrous election.
Blaming the media is like saying it rains a lot in Manchester. It’s not going to change.
The country, north, midlands and south, is not going to vote for a far left socialist agenda, with a pacifist foreign policy. That’s been tested and got nowhere.
Shakehands: I suppose we are just not as smart as you and JT.